The invention is based on a bearing element for hinging a wiper blade.
Known windshield wipers have a wiper arm that is comprised of a fastening part and an articulating part hinged to it that has a wiper rod. Furthermore, the have wiper blade that is comprised of a support bracket system with a primary center bracket and articulatingly connected, subordinate intermediary brackets as well as claw brackets and a wiper strip. The wiper blade is linked to the wiper arm by virtue of the fact that a hook-shaped end of the wiper rod holds a bearing element that is disposed between two side-pieces of the center bracket and, with a hub that is open over a circumference region, constitutes a hinge bolt of the center bracket. The articulation thus formed guides the wiper blade during the pivoting motion over the windshield, wherein the articulation and the support bracket system make it possible for the wiper strip to be able to adapt to a convexity of the windshield.
While the wiper arm is as a rule embodied in a vehicle specific manner and experiences practically no wear during the service life, the wiper blade wears particularly at the articulations and on the wiper strip so that it must be replaced frequently during the service life of the vehicle. In this connection, as a rule not only is the wiper strip replaced but also the entire wiper blade, which is commercially available.
In order to keep the number of wiper blade types low, plastic bearing elements are packaged along with the wiper blades and have a number of receiving devices for the wiper rod thus permitting the same wiper to be used with wiper rods of different material thicknesses and widths as well as different material thicknesses and widths as well as different bending radii and detent elements. From the available bearing elements, the user selects the one suited for his vehicle and discards the rest. The excess bearing elements increase the wiper blade packaging and lead to an increase in waste. Furthermore the transport and storage volume is increased.
EP 0 234 525 B1 has disclosed a bearing element of this generic type, which has a lateral strut that is offset from the open hub in the longitudinal direction and, when the bearing element is mounted on the hook-shaped end of the wiper rode, serves as a fixing in the longitudinal direction. To that end, the lateral strut has a distance from the rotational axis of the hub, which corresponds to the external bending radius of the hook-shaped end of the wiper rode. The wiper rode therefore does not require any detent opening for the longitudinal securing of the bearing element. The bearing element is consequently suited for wiper rods with and without a detent opening.
Furthermore, EP 0 655 373 A1 has disclosed a similar bearing element, which has two lateral struts disposed offset from the hub in the longitudinal direction, which serve as a longitudinal securing device for a hook-shaped end of a wiper rod, and the lateral strut that is disposed closest to the rotational axis is used for a hook-shaped end with a smaller bending radius and the other lateral strut is used for a hook-shaped end with a larger bending radius. The hook-shaped end with a larger-bending radius rests with its curved inner surface against a correspondingly shaped contact face of the first lateral strut. Consequently this bearing element is suited for wiper rods whose hook-shaped ends have two different bending radii. In order to keep the wiper rode from rotating in relation to the wiper rod it has an additional lateral strut and a detent projection disposed offset toward the hub. When mounting, the wiper rod is locked in detent fashion between the lateral strut and the detent projection.